Introduction
What does a typical day in your career look like for you?
Every day, my schedule looks very different, so I’ll lay out what a sample week could look like. On Monday, I would be attending legal and planning meetings to discuss our research locations. Tuesday would be spent in more meetings, but this time to discuss our air sampling program and what we’re learning at each of those machine sites. On Wednesdays, I would spend more time with administrative planning, before ending the week with our teaching program. Throughout the week, we’re paying attention to how people are working in our lab and how well our programs are working.
I also have a couple of grad students in my lab, so I try to meet with them later in the week about what they've been learning that week. Overall, it’s a lot of management and evaluation with the team about how each research project is going. We have to make sure everyone's able to achieve what they want to achieve to be successful, whether that is trying to get their papers written, collecting data, or even just keeping our communities and colleagues informed.
In a research-based role, how is your lab structured? What are the different roles that people play?
When I was growing up as a young student, I thought that doing research was standing at a bench and doing experiments with my hands all day long. It was only after I reached grad school and was able to move on and have my own lab that I learned that it was more about elevating a project on a bigger scale. Research involves managing and developing projects so that they are helpful for whatever you want. In my personal life, I want them to be helpful for the community around me, especially healthcare workers, aged care facilities, and vulnerable populations.
I want the work that I do to be helpful to those who need it. Everyone has different goals, but you have to have a clear plan no matter what to make sure that they get executed in a way that achieves that goal. You have to make sure everyone’s goals are getting met, so for me that involves the grad students as well. That could be getting their PhD, learning skills to then go on to graduate school, etc. There's a variety of people who show up to put in work every day, whether that’s pipetting in the lab setting, doing informatics, looking at data, or even writing a paper. There's a lot of different stages that people are at with different goals. I have to understand those different stages to make sure I help them get what they want and allow the program to succeed.
What specific issues is your lab researching at the current moment?
My lab has two parts. 25% of my lab is focused on infectious diseases in non-human primates. It used to actually be our sole focus. This involves studying SIV as a model for HIV in non-human primates, and also studying tuberculosis and SIV co-infection models in non-human primates. We study the immune responses and the virus-host interactions. It involves a mix of immunology, virology, bacteriology, and genetics to try to understand the way these systems work together.
The other 75% of my lab is focused on environmental surveillance for respiratory pathogens with an emphasis on air detection. We currently have some 50 or 60 sites that are sampling the air right now, 30 of which are schools. We collect this data and share it with public health so they can get a sense for what viruses are circulating in the community. We have a program focused on healthcare settings where we're trying to understand what pathogens circulate in the emergency department versus the urgent care clinics. We're also working on sampling in aged care facilities to try to improve early detection of pathogens to prevent an outbreak. And we also have a variety of international programs that we're using to try to figure out how to use air sampling in low income communities or less resourced communities for their benefits.
What did the process of introducing air sampling into your lab space look like?
It wasn't until the last few years when we got a lot more funding to do this type of work. As we've done more of it, it has been beneficial to more and more people. People now see the value of being part of this type of program. When we started, there were only a few of us who were devoting our time to doing air sampling. I would go out to a lot of sites myself to try to get them started or to help troubleshoot something. But now we have a whole team who are focused on the mission.
What inspired your interest in this sector of scientific research and how did you start on that path?
When I was in high school, I was just pretty decent at math and science. I never particularly liked reading or writing. Science honestly just seemed like the right path to take. I ended up at the University of Illinois and went into biology there and it worked out. I found the way that the body worked to be really cool. You might ask, well, did you want to be a doctor? I actually thought about being a doctor and I took the MCAT, but I wasn't planning on going to med school. So then I ended up here at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. I never had a big dream school or anything, but that was ok. As long as you choose an institution that has opportunities that you can try to take advantage of, it doesn’t matter where you go.
During my undergrad, I was doing research in a lab for a few years. I was studying chemotaxis of Bacillus subtilis, a bacteria that lives in the soil. I enjoyed getting to do this kind of independent research, but I really wanted to work on something that's more relevant to humans. When I went to grad school, I wanted to do something that was more immunology related. I never had a specific topic in mind going into my work - all I knew was that I wanted to help people.
I ended up studying cell signalling pathways in immune cells that can lead to myeloma. That's what I did during my PhD. When I finished that, I went and worked in the school of pharmacy for a year and I took on a job to be what was essentially a glorified teaching assistant. I was managing labs and I got really bored very quickly of doing the same thing every day. After a year, I switched over to the lab that was studying SIV in non-human primates. I eventually got my own funding to further expand that program.
When I started my lab, I didn’t just want to study SIV. I wanted to try to develop another model. I was able to collaborate with someone on the tuberculosis model. After that, it was really just a matter of trying to find more and more projects that allowed me to help more people more directly.
What are the biggest challenges that you're trying to solve in your work today?
The method of air sampling has been around for a long time, but trying to make it useful to people in communities is newer because the technologies weren't there. The tools that we have to detect pathogens are at our fingertips now, and they're just getting better. We’re always trying to figure out how to use those tools in a cost-effective way to better understand the pathogens around us and improve our health preparedness. This is agoal not just here in the U.S., but around the world.
For example, we have an air sampling program in Nepal that’s just beginning to get off the ground. What we're trying to do there is put air samplers in tuberculosis hostels so we can demonstrate that we can capture and detect the pathogen. We could then put air samplers in clinics and improve detection of tuberculosis. This is a country where tuberculosis is a huge problem, and they have a problem finding cases because not everyone recognizes that they have it. We want to try to find patients earlier to help the overall health of a country like Nepal whose budget for health care is relatively low. We want to figure out how to use these tools in settings that could improve the health of people in lots of different settings.
What skills do you think are important to develop to be successful in your position or your field?
I think it's hard to be a good scientist and have a scientific program without learning how to communicate, as well as being able to ingest information and then share it back.
It’s also important to have good people to work with because there's things we are individually deficient in, and we need people who are strong with those. My presentation skills are okay, but there are others who are better at that. At the same time, I’m better at dealing with budget-related issues. These are all different skills that we need for a scientific program to be successful.
What does being a leader mean to you?
A leader should demonstrate that they care about the program that they’re in charge of. Even if they’re not perfect, people should know that they actually pay attention and give advice because they care. For me, this means I do my best to respond to people’s weekly messages even if it’s just an acknowledgement of them. I try to meet with everyone so they know that I’m still involved.
Who is a role model in your life who has helped you become who you are today?
In grad school, I looked up to my advisor. He taught me how to be caring and kind and to look out for the people who work with you. My husband, Dave, is a really good example of someone who tries to just be a good person and work well with others. I always try to emulate that. I don’t have a single mentor who’s taught me everything, because so many people have shown me different things along the way. There’s people who have taught me about teaching, people who’ve shown me how to work in my community, and people who’ve demonstrated good ways to organize themselves in a workspace.
What is one last piece of advice you would give to young people looking to go into professional fields?
Take advantage of your opportunities! Just because you go to Harvard, you’re not going to be successful. You have to be willing to look for new chances at any institution. If I wanted to be a welder, and I got into a school for it and got an internship with a company, I would take every opportunity. Whatever field you go into, be willing to do that.